Coldplay on The Daily Show

Coldplay played a pair of songs from Viva La Vida last night on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. For those of you who thought that Chris Martin's absurd dancing was restricted to the usually-absurd iTunes ads, I've got news for you:

"42"



"Lost!"


There you have it. And yes, Jon Stewart is THAT short.

I'll have MP3s of these for the weekend (Audacity was acting up and I ran out of time)

==TJ==

European Soccer Fans Rocking Like It's 2003

Ask any official in the 2008 EURO Championships, and he'll tell you that the official song for Europe's biggest football (that's our soccer, kids) tournament is "Can You Hear Me" by Enrique Iglesias. The fans seem to have something different in mind.

Videos like this are why I LOVE European soccer fans:


Sadly that was the best video of the phenomenon I could find. Apparently "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes has become the de facto song for all EURO 2008 games (as well as the qualifying matches). Sure the song's 5 years old now, but when the alternative is Enrique? Look, I'll admit to owning a couple of his songs, but not exactly what I'd consider good pregame music for one of the most insane sports phenomena the world has seen.

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army [iTunes]
(Thanks to Pirates of the Bargain Bin for posting this first and thus allowing me to come across it)

==TJ==

Who's Left in the Velvet Revolver Sweepstakes?

In the interest of clearing up some of the confusion that's been generated in the last week, I present the following.

Below is a list of people who are NOT the new lead singer for Velvet Revolver:
Scott Weiland (duh.)
Chester Bennington (denied rumors, still working with Linkin Park)
Steve Isaacs (MTV VJ/Panic Channel leader also denied reports yesterday)
Sebastian Bach (Not doing it)
Layne Staley (no one has come forward to deny his involvement yet, but given that he's dead, I'm gonna go ahead and scratch him off my list)
David Cook (would be a good fit, but the Idol win ties up his schedule for the next year or so)

This leaves the rest of the band with:
The Unknown Australian
Any one of a million YouTubers (would be cool if Journey hadn't already blazed that trail)
Scott Stapp (Going from one Pearl Jam clone [Weiland] to another. Plus, dude's available)
Amy Winehouse (Unlikely she's one of about 12 people with an expiration date sooner than Weiland's)
Robert Plant (would silence the Led Zeppelin rumors for awhile)
Axl Rose (Like we haven't all been thinking it for the last 3 months)

Anyone I'm forgetting on either list?

Velvet Revolver - She Builds Quick Machines [iTunes]
Guns N Roses - November Rain [iTunes]

==TJ==

Under The Radar: Sound The Air Raid Sirens, It's a Freakin ARMY of 'em

EDIT: MP3s are now posted underneath each artist. Have at it! The good folks at Ariel asked if I could make the files stream-only. After teaching myself how to embed FLV players on the site, I declare success. Sorry for taking away the free music, but hopefully it won't kill anyone to go out and support these artists!

I'm hoping you all noticed the new banner at the top of the screen. If you didn't, you REALLY need to pay more attention. The one up now is the second one I've made, and you can check out this one and all future ones by going to my flickr account.

Last week I got an email that pretty much opened the door to enough Under The Radar posts to last me the rest of the year. The message came from the folks at Ariel Publicity, who basically help represent dozens of artists by putting their music on their site and letting all manner of folks, from potential labels to bloggers like me to hear the music, download stuff if we so choose, and it's all actually a pretty cool setup. Ariel promotes over 80 artists from any genre humanly possible. The only common thread I've noticed so far is that it's all pretty good. I just grabbed a couple random tracks from artists that I thought I'd like, and gonna give quickie previews to you guys.

First up is KaiserCartel, a folk-rock duo whose nearest mainstream neighbors are The Pretenders, My Bloody Valentine, and a touch of Snow Patrol. Don't let the strange influences turn you off; KaiserCartel are a cheerful, hearty, emotional band, and their song "Okay" reminds me of something that could've come off the soundtrack to the movie Once (if you haven't seen it yet, rent it. It's effing brilliant). And for bonus points, if you have nothing to do this Friday afternoon and are gonna be in Philly, they'll be at the World Cafe around 1PM. Go check them out, they're something else.

Okay

KaiserCartel on iTunes
KaiserCartel on MySpace

Next up is Blood Red Sun, a punk rock act that takes an 80s mindset and puts it into modern rock terms. The guitars on "All At Once" are an awesome blend of 80s electronic and 00s explosiveness. On top of it all, the track is lyrically on par with early U2 and Coldplay, and as a result Blood Red Sun could be one of the bands to fill the void that hard-rock message bands like Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down left behind.

All At Once

Blood Red Sun on iTunes
Blood Red Sun on MySpace

The first artist recommended to me was Tori Lewis. Tori Lewis is an R&B singer listed as being in the style of Alicia Keys and Jordin Sparks. That comparison sort of works, except Tori Lewis takes that formulaic R&B sound and adds a punk rock edge to it, with a guitar backdrop that would make "Umbrella" blush. Imagine if Avril Lavigne went back to her Let Go era style and did a collaboration with Rihanna. Except now make it awesome. As someone who doesn't particularly love R&B (I put up with it on the radio, but it's far from being on my iPod in any volume), Tori Lewis' debut Attitude might end up being one of my next few purchases.

Any Minute Now


Tori Lewis on iTunes
Tori Lewis' MySpace

Lastly I've got Five a.m. I think I grabbed this track because the name reminded me of Sixx AM, whom I love. A dumb reason to pick a band, but there's nothing bad about these guys. Five a.m. are the most radio-ready band out of all the ones I've mentioned so far, and I mention this in the best possible way. They've got all the hooks of 90s post-grunge pop a la Better Than Ezra and Dishwalla, and lyrically they've got the brains of some of the best soft-rockers out there (read: Matt Nathanson, Howie Day, etc.). If these four acts are any indication of what else Ariel Publicity has in their lineup, then there's even more good music waiting to break out than I realize. Suffice it to say I'm gonna have my hands full when it comes time to get back to work on the radio station.

Be Still

Five a.m. on iTunes
Five a.m. on MySpace

That's it for now. I'll post mp3s from all these acts once I've got confirmation that it's OK. You have them now. I've been asked to make the MP3s stream only. Working on that now...

==TJ==

Rapid Fire: Linkin Park, Velvet Revolver, Teddy Geiger (?!?!), etc.

Rather than try to do a bazillion posts today, I'm consolidating three into one.

=First, and update on an Under the Radar band; Canadian alt-rock outfit Your Favorite Enemies dropped their first full-length album, Love is a Promise Whispering Goodbye earlier this week. It's available dirt cheap on iTunes, and most of it is streaming from their MySpace page. I sadly have not yet picked up my copy, but once I do, expect a review

Your Favorite Enemies - Open Your Eyes [iTunes]

=Teddy Geiger, who despite falling off the face of the map since Love Monkey was unfortunately canceled two years ago is not dead, has set up a site via a service called musicane which is letting fans help select tracks from his long in-production second album. Fans can hear snippets from 33 songs, rate them, and if they so choose buy high-quality MP3s of their favorites. Relatively ingenious for a guy my age, but if people choose to buy their favorite songs from this set...won't that basically render useless releasing an album that might not have everyone's favorites on it?

=And now, the non-story of this set; Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington has squashed the rumors that he's on the shortlist to take over singing duties for the newly Weiland-free Velvet Revolver. Given that at last report, the VR camp was in talks with "an unknown Australian singer", I'm not sure who thought Chester was on the shortlist, as he is neither unknown nor Australian. Bennington says his current focus is on completing the Projekt Revolution tour with LP and releasing the debut album from his solo project Dead By Sunrise.

==TJ==

The Offspring Attempt to Rise, But Stall Out On Runway

The Offspring, punk rock's red-headed stepchild, released Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace on Tuesday, their first album since 2003's Splinter. The Offspring haven't exactly ever been at the top of anything in their time. Smash may be the most successful indie-label album ever, but it came out 2 months after Green Day's seminal album Dookie. Every step of the way, where Dexter Holland was the kid at the science fair with the paper-maché volcano, Billie Joe Armstrong was the kid next to him that managed to build a flux capacitor. Likewise, every move they've made in marketing this album has been matched and overshadowed by Coldplay (who also dropped an album on Tuesday).

Before going into the review, I need to make one gripe about the album title. Yeah, it fits the nature of the record well, but I'd feel a hell of a lot better about it if it didn't bear a striking resemblance to the most recent Foo Fighters album. I know, I know-- I'm picking nits here. Just pointing out that it bugs me a bit. Not that this album holds a candle to the Foos though.

The record opens well enough with "Half-Truism", an anthemic musing on the state of the world a la Sum 41's "We're All To Blame". "Half-Truism" shows off some of what makes the Offspring a decent band; a huge chorus, a knowledge of both good musicianship and punk rock, and a means of blending the two together. When those qualities come through, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, has some real highlights.

However, inconsistency and half-assedness keep those gems marred. Other moments on the album either lack cohesion (the horrendous first single "Hammerhead") or try too hard to show the band trying to be a hardcore punk band, and less time actually being hardcore like the messy "Trust In You" (In theater we call this practice a number of bad things, among them 'mailing it in'). In other moments the Offspring are just bland, sounding less like the Dead Kennedys and more like Good Charlotte. "Fix You" may not be a cover of the Coldplay song, but it's boring enough to be mistaken for it. Even when the band does something that extends its own boundaries, its merely going into the safe territory of radio-ready rock balladry, such as "A Lot Like Me" and the fun, yet-all-too-familiar "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" (the apparent second single).

This is not to say the album is a total loss. Dexter Holland's vocals, with the soaring "whoa-oh-oh's" behind him, and the overall skill of the band manages to keep a number of songs floating, if not actually very good. "Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?" is a powerful, emotional piece of music that, while again smelling of Sum 41, shows off the band's potential for something greater than what's presented. The track most reminiscent of older Offspring "Stuff Is Messed Up" can't decide if it's being serious or not, but halfway through it stops mattering because it's so damn fun.

However, shitty songs played well are still shitty songs.

Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace is a rarity in that it actually gets better the longer you listen to it. The challenge is having the patience and will to get through the subpar and flat-out awful. Since I admittedly lost interest before the album closed out (and only kept going for the good of the review), I can't say that it's necessarily worth the effort you'd need to put forth.

Final Score: 4/10
The Offspring - Half-Truism [iTunes]
The Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far Kid [iTunes]

Guns N Roses Album Streaming!?!??!??!!!

Bear in mind that everything I post in this entry is subject to change at a moment's notice, and the authenticity of this post's content remains in question. That said, Chinese Democracy, the perpetually delayed "new" Guns N Roses album may be not only complete, but streaming online.

Idolator broke the story about an hour ago, saying that Antiquiet had a finished copy of the album streaming from their website. On top of that, Antiquiet claims it is worth a wait, though perhaps not 15 years. Unfortunately as of right now the site has pulled the stream, citing technical difficulties, but it could well be back up in the not-too-distant future.

Fingers crossed, people. Back soon.

==TJ==

Update: The folks at Antiquiet have posted this within the last couple hours:

So as I reported earlier, I personally got a phone call from a guy in the Guns N’ Roses camp. He wasn’t a jerk, but he made it very clear that what I did today was very uncool. And you know what, in hindsight, I am sorry. I got caught up in the moment. Apparently these tracks were already “out there” when we posted them, but we were the first to broadcast them through a streaming audio player, and I really shouldn’t have done that.

I may face legal issues for this one. Wish me luck. In the meantime, I’m closing comments down for this post, and I removed the rapidshare link to the MP3s that was posted there (not by us).

So that's that. Apparently these weren't terribly new. And a word to the GNR rep: Let Antiquiet off the hook. He's apologized, and clearly he's just as rabid for the album to finally come out as anyone who's downloaded, heard, or even looked at a story about the album's progress in the last year. Let Antiquiet live, and get to work on releasing the album!!

==TJ==

Top 5: Herpes Songs

We all have them. Those songs that we can't seem to escape, no matter how hard we might try. Once they're in our head, they stay there, and KEEP COMING BACK. We find ourselves singing them incessantly in our heads...and the worst part is...it's usually not the whole song!! Nope, it's just the same 30 second hook on a perpetual, hellish repeat in the brain. That, my friends, is the definition of a herpes song. As a general rule once or twice an otherwise harmless track reaches herpes song status. Recent examples include: "Smack That", "Don'tcha", and "Apologize", among others. Below I have 5 of my most annoying herpes songs. Note that this is more subjective than most Top 5's, simply because different songs affect people differently; these may not necessarily be the best examples of herpes songs, but they're 5 of the most immediately recognizable from recent memory.

5. J. Geils Band - Centerfold [iTunes]
Possibly the grandfather of herpes tracks. Most useful in eliminating other herpes tracks just by singing the "na-na nananana..." section of the bridge. Trust me; this has actually been tested. Also one of the rare rock songs that achieves this status.

4. Rihanna - Umbrella [iTunes]
This one only recently got contained, but we all remember last year when "ella, ella, ella...DAMMIT!!" could be heard from many a member of the general public. The difference is that this song might actually has a chance of being remembered fondly, whereas other herpes songs are the kind of thing that gets played by the DJ at a wedding as a joke for the sake of getting a collective groan out of the guests.

3. Soulja Boy Tell Em - Crank Dat (Soulja Boy) [iTunes]
Again, a song that was a full blown pandemic about a year ago. What makes this one so insufferable is the combined incoherence of the lyrics, mixed with one or two easily recognizable phrases, ie "Superman dat hoe!!". My friend Collin once had a most unfortunate affliction with this song, to the point that he now refers to the artist as "Fuckin' Soulja Boy!". Complete with the emphasis and everything.

(The version posted is the Travis Barker remix. Only one I can remotely stomach.)

2. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl [iTunes]
I probably added this track mostly because a) it's spreading rather rapidly right now, and b) it hit me earlier this week. Again, an easy chorus, moderately ridiculous lyrics and an infectious hook in the background helped this one spread, on top of the MySpace/YouTube craze that accompanied it.

(As with just about all of these save for #5, Web 2.0 can be traced back as the incubator for most of these herpes songs. If you were waiting for the other shoe to drop on the whole thing, I think it just did)

1. Amy Winehouse - Rehab [iTunes]
You guessed it. I once witnessed this song attack a house full of 20 people between the ages of 13-25 all in the same one week period. It was not pretty. All this had going for it was absurd lyrics, and it still reached worldwide epidemic proportions over the course of 6 months. If you didn't at some point find yourself saying "no, no, no" when people tried to make you do something, you're lying to yourself.

So there you have it. Of course there are others, possibly better than these. But these 5 are the ones that strike cringes in my heart with virtually little effort. Hell, since I had to download these tracks for the purposes of this blog, I've had a hard time keeping my ears from shriveling up. Never let it be said that put myself on the line for the good of the blog.

==TJ==

Mission: Metallica Launch Success Resembles Your Average NASA Undertaking

There's been all kinds of hubbub centered around Mission: Metallica, the online experience related to the forthcoming new Metallica album. Today I caved and decided to join the free version of the site and report back on what they're offering.

First, let's get something straight; I find it moderately offensive when someone tries to charge me for access to a specific website. Making me pay money to see what you put up on a website (on an internet that I already pay money to access) is just greedy and criminal. So no, I have no intention of taking part in this Mission: Metallica Platinum section of the site. Paying 25 bucks for a couple more videos and MP3s on the midnight release date is not a good investment in my eyes.

First, the bad about the site. For starters, it doesn't appear to work in Firefox. I tried putting in my information, and the site just kinda looked at me funny. Not cool. For more on my feelings, I direct you to this image. I've already gone into the absurdity of the platinum bit, but I have one more thought on the midnight MP3 release; the album, which earlier today earned it's name Death Magnetic, is currently listed as being released in September. No exact date is given. So at present, Metallica wants me to shell out money to get MP3s of an album that has no firm release date as of yet and is still subject to delays, setbacks, and other unforeseen circumstances that would cause me to not receive what I paid for.

Right now all those folks who pre-ordered Chinese Democracy back in 1995 are having PTSD-level flashbacks. I rest my case.

On the other hand, Metallica is also offering up some pretty kickass stuff to those who can't afford the Platium pass. At present there are 3 full concerts available as torrents for download, with promises of more on the way, up to and including this past weekends Bonnaroo. Game on. The fly on the wall videos also show some pretty candid, if perhaps a bit uninteresting, footage. And what bits of music they let slip in this experience (Yes, remember, this is all meant to support a new album) actually sounds really damned good. From someone who's only owned one Metallica album in my life, I'm actually a little bit excited to hear the rest of Death Magnetic, even if it's the frontrunner for Worst Album Name of the Year.

Death Magnetic is out in September. Check out missionmetallica.com if you're so inclined.

==TJ==

¡VLM! Doubles Your Daily Reading Material

Hello readers. As promised, a special announcement is below.

Today will mark the official launch of Micro-Buttered Popcorn, the film/TV counterpart to this blog. I've been working on it for the last week or two since I had the idea to launch one, and as of this morning I feel its ready to be viewed by the masses. It is in some sense still under construction (sidebars and widgets still being added, template might change again), but it exists, and is certainly worth reading. I aim for it to be a pretty inclusive film blog, but right now it is very clearly a geek movie blog. Working on that. So without any more explanation or guilding the lily or whatever, I give you the newest VLM project. Read it, tell me what you think, repeat. You know the drill.

Thanks for reading.

Micro-Buttered Popcorn

==TJ==

I Love Journey...But I HATE Baseball Cards...

There are two good things about doing a review featuring Journey

1) I can talk about listening to Journey without risking getting things thrown at me.

2) I have a justifiable reason to post a Family Guy clip



Now that that's over with...Journey is back (most of them anyway) with Revelation, their thirteenth studio album and first with new lead singer Arnel Pineda, perhaps the most famous cover band singer ever, and poster child for YouTube fame (Pineda was discovered when Neal Schon found YouTube videos of his Journey cover band). With the exception of Pineda as a vocal clone of Steve Perry, there isn't much else in the way of a revelation on this album. From start to finish, this album is straightforward Journey, for better and for worse.

Revelation opens as you would expect a Journey album to open, with a balls-out power ballad. "Never Walk Away" most certainly falls into the category of what's good about Journey. It was on the strength of this song alone that I opted to give the rest of the album a chance. From there it's a mixed bag of sing/shout-along rockers best heard from your car speakers with the windows down, and the arena friendly love songs that let the band take a breather. There's nothing inherently bad about Revelation, or any Journey album for that matter, it's just that after awhile, it gets a bit tired, and I feel the need to hear something different, which Journey can't necessarily provide. The instrumental closer is a nice attempt, but it comes far too late. The core of Revelation is good in 10-15 minute spurts, but headache-inducing in increments longer than that. It's kind of like actually being in the 1980s.

But that's just the first disc. Journey earns its keep on the second disc, which is essentially the Pineda-fronted Journey performing 11 of the band's biggest hits. I don't know if these recordings were meant to prove to hardcore fans that they're still the same band, or simply a way for Wal-Mart to milk an extra couple bucks out of buyers, but it's brilliant. I think there should be a rule that anytime a band changes lead singers, they must release recordings of the new lead singer singing the old favorites. Would this not be a) a great way to keep skeptical fans happy that the band hasn't changed, and b) a great marketing scheme? Someone give me a good reason why this would suck.

Anyway, Revelation comes down to this; if you LOVE Journey, you'll enjoy the album. If, like me, you're a casual fan, you'll break even. If you don't like Journey, you weren't gonna buy the album anyway.

Final Score: 6.5/10
Highlights:
Journey - Never Walk Away
Journey - Wheel In The Sky (Arnel Pineda Version)

==TJ==

New-ish Ringtones

I forgot to mention this before the crash last week, and forgot further when I posted earlier today:

I made two new ringtones last weekend;

August Rush - Something Inside [thus completing the August Rush trifecta of awesome songs from that movie]
Coldplay - Viva La Vida (iTunes Mix) [pretty much the audio from the ubiquitous iTunes ad]

The Coldplay ringtone has in just 8 days already snagged over 2,000 downloads, so the masses would recommend that one, and all the ones I've made in the past are still available. Link is below and in the sidebar.

VivaLaMainstream's ringtones on Myxer

Back later this weekend, and expect a special announcement on Monday (astute readers might have already found the subject of the announcement).

==TJ==

Back to Work!!

Yep, computer's fixed, and I'm back to work for the blog. Hope you all didn't miss me too much in my absence, but in lieu of hugs and exclamations of how much we all missed each other this past week, let's dive right into some stuff.

-In Blog Time this dates back to right around the Civil War, but regardless, Radiohead debuted a new track at a concert last Friday. They had been out of the music news realm for about 2 weeks before that, so I guess they needed to remind fans they were still around. Haven't listened to it yet, but posting it nonetheless

Radiohead - Super Collider (Live in Dublin)

(By the way, I'm aborting that A-Z project from this entry. I'd be calling it close without losing this week, now it's damn near impossible. I shall try some other time.)

-I'm currently listening to the new Journey album (popped up online the other day, so the internal debate of whether I would cop to buying music from Wal-Mart was thankfully bypassed). Only three tracks in, so nowhere near ready for a legitimate review, but I'm posting the first single because I kind of love it...a lot. Like, more than I probably should.

Journey - Never Walk Away [Wal-Mart]

-NIN put out an EP in support of its North American tour, which as expected is free on nin.com. According to a New York Times profile, Trent Reznor is reportedly working on a Year Zero cable series. Read the report here.

-Without the computer for a week, I'm a bit backlogged on posts. The good about this is that there's plenty of blogging coming this week. The bad is that I have a huge pile of things to look at in the next 48 hours. If you emailed me with a music recommendation, I probably got the email, but am just now getting to hearing the music. Sit tight, posts about the good stuff are pending.

And one more song from an album I haven't been able to play through yet, but a song that I find myself loving a bit more every play:

MGMT - Time to Pretend [iTunes]

Yes it's gotten some love from the indie fans, but I have nothing against indie bands, just their idiot fans. Back tomorrow.

==TJ==

Going Off The Grid For A Bit

In any normal situation you would be getting a blog full of interesting material right now, but there's one problem:

My computer crashed yesterday afternoon. Best case scenario I get it back Saturday-ish. Worst case scenario...well, let's not go there *takes a few deep breaths*. So suffice it to say I don't see much point in running an mp3 blog when I have no mp3s to post for the time being. So VLM is gonna take an unexpected vacation for the week. In my absence be sure to check out my blogging comrades via the sidebar on the left (under 'other fine reading material'). I'll be back when I have a computer that doesn't suck.

==TJ==

¡Viva La Mainstream! Likes Viva La Vida. What A Shock.

(For the record, Blogger effed up the old template so it looked a little ugly, hence the new one. Hoping they fix it/something better comes up soon. Sorry for the otherwise subpar look for the time being)

A couple of people at EMI must really have dreaded coming into work these last couple days. Coldplay's rabidly anticipated fourth album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends leaked last night, 13 days before its official June 17th release date. I have a lot to say in this review, but if you don't have time to read the whole thing, know that this album (despite being only 10 tracks) was the meatiest, most interesting album I've listened to all year.

The album opens with "Life in Technicolor", an instrumental track that more or less serves as an overture to the rest of the album, which brings me to my first piece of praise; the instrumentals on this LP are a cut above anything I've heard Coldplay do. I don't know if credit for that goes to Chris Martin, producer Brian Eno, or the band as a whole, but credit is due nonetheless. If EMI wanted to try to double-dip on this album, I think releasing an entirely instrumental version of the album would go over nicely. Coldplay run a musical gamut on Viva La Vida..., from the Justin Timberlake influenced "Lost!" to the Phish-meets-an-ice-cream-truck* "Strawberry Swing", while still making sure fans know that this is still the same band (more or less) with piano nods in "42" and campfire-y acoustic guitars in the closing "Death and All His Friends", which had me singing along only 30 seconds in.

*Yes, I actually wrote that in my notes.

Going back to the instrumentation on the album, I felt like every song would work well on a soundtrack to some movie somewhere. "Lovers In Japan/Reign of Love", one of three 6-minute-plus opuses on the album, between the incredible strings and Chris Martin's subdued vocals could provide background music to any one of a thousand movies and do nothing but enhance the scene.

Now onto the lyrics. Here too there's layer upon layer of meat and subtext to be found, not the least of which in "Viva La Vida". The steady run of Biblical and religious allusions are as interesting to read and look at as they are to hear Chris Martin sing. And across the board the album wonderfully balances themes of life and death, as the album title would suggest (more on that later). I can't even really give an accurate analysis of it, since doing so from memory wouldn't really do it justice. It's that good. Just like his comrades, Chris Martin made a huge leap on this album with both his singing (check out the lower register on "Yes") and his songwriting (the hook and chorus-free "Cemeteries in London").

When Coldplay announced that they were experimenting with their sound on Viva La Vida, the first thing I thought was "Coldplay's going Radiohead". Based on this review, that's not entirely accurate. The sound is distinctly different from Radiohead. But make no mistake; Viva La Vida is to Coldplay what OK Computer was to Radiohead. In making this album, the whole game changes for Coldplay. The Coldplay that made millions off "Clocks" and "Speed of Sound" isn't really here on this album. On Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends Coldplay finally fill the huge sound they've hinted at on their first three albums. And now that they've filled those shoes, the next logical step is for them to break the hell out of them. When that happens, I'll have some cash set aside so I can be there to hear it.

One more thing; a lot has been made about the album's title. Tons of people think it's absurd. I liked the notion of Viva La Vida from the getgo (maybe because of how close it sounds to the name of this blog), and was willing to accept the extended title, but after hearing the album, I can do one better; the album title makes sense. Depending on how you look at it, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends is either a joyful celebration of life and existence or an upbeat transcendental meditation on death and the afterlife (think Black Parade without the suicide controversy). Thus, the album is either Viva La Vida, or the album is Death and All His Friends. Coldplay leaves it up to you. And they said they weren't pulling a Radiohead. Needless to say, EMI shouldn't worry too much about a leak hurting record sales. Coldplay's making sure their label lives to see another album...or at the very least another few weeks out of bankruptcy.

Final Score: 9.5/10
Coldplay - Viva La Vida [iTunes]
Coldplay - Lost! [iTunes]
Pre-order Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends on iTunes

==TJ==

PS: Check out the new guy on the block at Polar Bear Stole My Coat

Coldplay album leaks; review ASAP

The title of the entry pretty much says it all. Obtaining it now, will have a review of it in the coming days. Just posted this as a means of encouraging all ye who would do such a thing to check your torrents and music forums to see if they've gone up.

And no this will NOT affect the project in the previous entry.

==TJ==

Another New Undertaking

I've begun a new project for the summer (in addition to revamping the layout on this very site). After seeing just how much music exists on my computer and amount that I've never actually listened to, I have decided that I am going to listen to my entire music library by August 31st. Just to make things a bit more interesting, rather than try to do some interesting shuffle sequence, I'm just going to go alphabetical by artist. My goal on August 31st is to have every song by every artist from +44 to The Zutons with a play count of at least 1.

The rules:
-At this moment, there are 4,149 songs in my iTunes library.
-Those 4,149 songs, assuming they all played nonstop, would take 11 days, 6 hours, 2 minutes and 14 seconds (approximately; there are some videos and other goofy stuff that doesn't count in there) to play from front to back.
-Since I don't plan on halting my acquisition of music for the summer, any music that I get will get added into the set, unless it would have already played, at which point I'll just wait till it ends. [example; as I type this I'm near the end of 'AC', so if I were to get new music by 3 Doors Down, it wouldn't be added to the list]
-Stuff played on my iPod doesn't count, since its not alphabetical. This means I have to unsync my iPod; not a big deal, just means I have to add music manually for the next few months.
-I have till August 31st to complete this. When using iTunes, I may not use party shuffle or any other playlist. If I have something specific I wanna hear, it needs to go onto the iPod.

And of course I'm going to keep you all posted on how I'm doing. I started June 2nd at 4:40PM (+44 - Lycanthrope). Since then I have finished 126 songs, the last song finished being "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds from the Across the Universe Soundtrack (filed under Across).

That's it for now. And yes, there will be MP3s throughout this venture along with the usual blogging about whatever sparks my mind.

Songs completed: 126/4149
Last Song: Across the Universe - Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds [iTunes]

Back later.

==TJ==

Disturbed's Indestructible Nearly Lives Up to the Name

Today Disturbed dropped their Indestructible, their fourth studio album. The band had already promised a heavier, angrier album than anything we've heard from them to date, and in hearing lead singer David Draiman talk about the inspiration for the album (up to an including an old girlfriend's suicide, a fire that burned his garage and motorcycles, among other things), it's understandable where it's coming from. As someone who wasn't blown away by Ten Thousand Fists and still thinks Believe was the best Disturbed CD (and a sorely underappreciated album in general), I was simultaneously curious and excited to see where this darker turn would lead. After being amazed by leadoff single "Inside the Fire" and loving the album artwork, I was prepared to accept whatever else Disturbed offered up for Indestructible.

The album opens up with the title track, whose intro bears an uncanny resemblance to the beginning of Apocalypse Now (more specifically, The Doors' "The End). A rather appropriate way to lead things off. "Indestructible" is exactly the sort of "Eff You" anthem Disturbed likes to get things started off with. From there it goes into "Inside the Fire", which I still think might be the best Disturbed single of their career thus far. It's also one of the most traditionally metal things this band has ever written. Between this song and "Perfect Insanity", Disturbed's transformation from a early 00's nu-metal band into a respectable, true metal band is complete. Dan Donegan's guitar solos are incendiary, and drummer Mike Wengren has come into his own with this album, double-bass pedals and all. A number of times during my first listen of Indestructible, I had to ask myself, "Are these REALLY the same guys who scored a hit off 'Down With the Sickness'?"

That's not to say that Disturbed have totally reinvented themselves. "Criminal" still shows shades of something from The Sickness, and Draiman isn't afraid to go animal on us and unleash that absurd "Monkey from 28 Days Later" scream, only now it's better placed than in the past.
Disturbed manage to successfully create an album that, albeit dark and heavy, stops short of being depressing. Overall the music here would fall into the category of metal, but it's not the stereotypical death metal that gets Christian groups all uppity. Think more Ozzy, less Morbid Angel.

(Full disclosure: I had to wikipedia a list of death metal bands to finish that analogy. Seeings how I don't listen to much of any of those, needed some help. Judge me all you want)

Without a doubt the best song on this album is "The Night". This track shows David Draiman at the absolute top of his game, getting into the higher reaches of his voice without it ever losing that raw edge that the song needs. The hooks are brilliant, and while it may not have the best potential for a hit single, is easily the most memorable song on the album behind "Inside the Fire". It, along with most of the rest of this album, would be an amazing experience to hear done live.

Indestructible is a 12-track long freight train of an album that gets its momentum from minute one and rarely stops to refuel. The complaints are in large part negligible, mostly just tracks and lyrics that don't stack up to the rest of the album. I'd like to see Disturbed play a bit more with track length; everything on this album hovers between 3:30 and 4:30, and I would love to see what they did with a quick sub-3 minute ballbuster or perhaps something more epic. But by the time "Facade" comes to its abrupt end to close the LP, Disturbed have done everything they set out to do with Indestructible, and most importantly, they've almost certainly pleased a number of fans.

Final Score: 8.5/10
Disturbed - Inside the Fire [iTunes]
(I would love to post "The Night", but I got the album off iTunes, so everything but this song is DRMed)

==TJ==

Duffy vs. Winehouse (Here's A Hint: One Of Them Doesn't Suck)

I recently picked up the debut album from Duffy, the Welsh singer-songwriter that's continuing the 60's soul revival inexplicably made popular by Amy Winehouse. Shortly thereafter I swallowed my reservations and gave Winehouse's Back to Black album a listen. Needless to say, I was only half-surprised by what I heard.

Something pertaining to Amy Winehouse's antics pops up on one of my celebrity trash websites on average once a week, sometimes more. I honestly don't understand the appeal. Winehouse doesn't even have the appeal of someone like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan whom people can at least remember as once upon a time being attractive and talented. Winehouse got her first hit in "Rehab", only to then spontaneously combust as the rest of the world realized, "Oh, crap. Maybe that wasn't just a song". Since then, there hasn't been much of a high note in her career, save for the Grammy wins, which to this day I can't explain. So you can understand my hesitation when people told me to give Back to Black the fair chance it deserves. Well, I did my best to do so, and I can honestly say I am largely unimpressed. Winehouse's voice may have moments of excellence, but those are few and far between, and too often she comes off as an Alicia Keys with marginally better songwriting (which says almost nothing, since Keys has never impressed me as a songwriter.) There are a few spots that with a bit of polish could shine, notably the title track, but at the end of it all the whole album sounds more like a tribute to the style Winehouse is trying to reinvent than an actual original album.

Final Score: 3/10

If you were to shoot Amy Winehouse up into space and point her in the vicinity of a black hole, once time took its course and Winehouse was totally sucked in, it's a safe bet that Duffy would pop out the other side of that black hole. Duffy and her debut Rockferry are everything Winehouse isn't, and what Winehouse haters should flock to if they want to be a part of the current trends in music. The album opens with the title track, and by the end of said opener the album has already bested anything Amy Winehouse has offered up. Duffy's voice is massive, and smoother than most contemporary R&B stars are today. The fact that the current hit single "Mercy" (#34 on the Top 40 last week) is buried way down at track 7 on a 10 track debut album should tell you something about the confidence Duffy has in the quality of the rest of her material. That confidence is well placed. From back to front Rockferry is an alluring listen. Even if you're not a fan of the genre, you'd do right to give it a chance just to say you heard some really good music (and to spit in the face of Grammy voters who could not have been more wrong back in February).

Final Score: 8/10
Duffy - Stepping Stone [iTunes]

Back in a few hours with a review of Disturbed's new album and some other stuff.

==TJ==

Weighing in on the Prince/Radiohead Clusterf--k

News of Prince's cover of Radiohead's "Creep" from Coachella this year has traveled far and wide, but somehow the controversy around it has only just now kicked up. The basic facts: Prince is ridiculously stingy about the amount footage from his concerts and his overall image on the internet (he shut down his website and declared war on eBay and YouTube over his material). Prince covered Radiohead's breakout hit. Video of said performance hit the web, as a reasonable person might expect would happen. Prince's label has squashed nearly every video of the show, citing a copyright violation.

Problem is, Prince doesn't own the rights to the song. Thom Yorke does. Based on Radiohead's attitudes toward digital content, a reasonable person would suggest that Radiohead wouldn't mind the video's existence. Thom Yorke recently said so in an interview. And yet, footage of the video is still getting stomped on by NPG. That said...



I post the video on the following grounds:
1) Prince doesn't own the rights to "Creep". Thom Yorke has more or less given the video his blessing
2) This material was filmed by a fan in attendance at the concert. Again, Prince has no grounds here.
3) It is true that Prince owns the right to his image, and if he really wants to be a dick about it, he can impose a draconian code on how that image is transmitted. But if you can watch the video above and positively identify that the man on stage is Prince and not just a guy in a bright white suit singing (the wrong lyrics to) Radiohead's "Creep", then maybe there's grounds. In my view, no video I've found gets a good enough look to tell Prince from Michael Jackson circa 1981.

(Wait...you mean people at the concert couldn't make that distinction either? Oh...)

This is a very interesting situation for all the reasons above, but there's one fatal flaw: save for the mildly interesting-but-too-long guitar solo, Prince's version sucks. It's just a subpar performance of a song that Radiohead has all but disavowed. I don't know what Prince was trying to accomplish in covering the track, but what he's done is piss off the general internet-saavy, music-enjoying public. Smooth.

If you REALLY want it, here's the MP3.

Prince - Radiohead (Live @ Coachella)

==TJ==

PS If the video goes away (as it probably will sooner or later), just search 'Prince Creep' on YouTube and another video will inevitably surface.

More Stuff

Changes still taking place on the blog layout. Looking for a better picture to use as a banner, but not much luck so far. Still open to thoughts/comments on the whole thing.

In the meantime, I made my first mix on Mixwit earlier this weekend (link over on the left). As the title suggests, it's all acoustic versions of awesome songs. Have at, and expect more soon.

==TJ==